Reading
Mark 8:27-33
27 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”
28 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”
29 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”
30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.
31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Meditation
The "confession of Peter" represents in Mark the turning point of the public ministry of Jesus. People consider him a prophet or the revived Baptist; the disciples, on the other hand, consider him the Christ, but this identity must not be revealed to avoid confusion with the erroneous conceptions of that time, concerning the nature of the messianic ministry.
As emerges from other passages of the New Testament, Peter is the spokesman for the Twelve (v. 29). The Greek word christos is the equivalent of the Hebrew "messiah", the "consecrated" by God, the savior of humanity.
Jesus introduces the Twelve to the reality of Christ's suffering messianism (v. 31), in contrast with the traditional triumphalistic image in Judaism and with Israel's expectation of the time of a liberator from the Roman yoke.
The "elders" (v. 31) who will reproach Jesus are the members of the Sanhedrin, which was made up of 71 elders, high priests, and scribes, headed by the high priest. The three days preceding the resurrection of Christ recall a prophetic interpretation of the three days of Jonah in the belly of the whale (Joh 1:17; 2:10) and the words of Hosea: "Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence."(Hos 6: 1-2).
Peter does not resign himself to accepting the path of the cross undertaken by Jesus and is compared by him to a tempter, who does not want to choose the divine way, on which the true disciple must take, but the human one. Satan is synonymous with the devil in the New Testament and is called by this appellation 35 times. The Hebrew etymology of him means "accuser", "adversary", "slanderer". The prospect of glory without cross had been offered by him to Jesus during the temptations in the wilderness.
The person of Jesus challenges every man of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Who do we say he is? An important, good, charismatic man? Or is there something more in him? The answer we will give will help us to discover not only his identity but also our identity and the direction to give to our life, present and future.
The truth lies far from the gossip of the people. The same Scriptures, tradition, and reason give us back an image of God, but without the personal experience of the encounter with him, our life will not be able to be inspired by the newness of the Gospel, conforming ourselves to the icon of his Son, in which inhabits all the fullness of divinity (Col 2,9).
Prayer
Help us to recognize you, Lord, not only in your image of glory but also in the face of every suffering man; so that we can walk behind you and find life by giving life. Amen.
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
